“Eight, of course. In your eight years, as you serve the pilgrims and tend your fields, what do you see?”
Olav looked over the table at the Mason in the dim lamp light. They had known each other since they were boys. Olav had not been of nobility, so he could never be a knight of the Order. He and the Mason had grown up together, fought together more times than either could remember and traveled together across the Templar world.
“In all the time I have known you,” said Olav, “I have never seen you do a thing or even say anything without reason. I don’t need to know your reasons, but I will trust that you have them. Here is what I see. When I bought this place I had five neighbors, all from good Crusader stock. Every watering hole from here to Acre was owned by one of us. Now, the only European faces I see are pilgrims and those I see are guarded. My neighbors are all good people, but now they are all Arabs, the Europeans have gone. But the most interesting thing I see is you, all alone, not wearing your Templar habit sitting in a small inn in the middle of the desert when I know that you spend your time talking to princes and advising the Grand Master.”
The Mason smiled. “I was not just being polite when I suggested that you could rejoin the Order. We have great need of men like you, but you’re right, this is not a chance encounter, I need your help, the Order needs your help and even though you left many years ago I hope that you will help.”
“What help could I provide you and the Order?”
“Something simple,” said the Mason. “Only to listen and remember what you see.”
“I will listen and watch, but remember, as you have a loyalty to the Order I have loyalties of my own. I am a married man with four children. There are families who live on my land and work for me. If I am dead people will suffer because of it. Besides,” said Olav, “there is a ten-year truce between Acre and the Saracens.”
The Mason nodded, then said, “There is a truce. Caliph Qalawun has taken every major Crusader city in the Holy Land except Acre. After they took Tripoli there was so much loot that Arab warriors had enough to keep them for life. They captured so many prisoners when that city fell that the price of a European slave in Damascus was lower than a camel. Now he wants peace.”
“So, Qalawun needs peace and the Crusaders need peace,” said Olav. “If the king in Acre and the Muslim leaders have agreed to a truce, what do you think a struggling farmer can do?”
The Mason took a long drink from his wine cup and looked into the flame of the lamp.
“Something is happening, but I don’t know what,” said the Mason. “I don’t like not knowing.”
Phones
“There are some people who you just don’t like, don’t you think?” said Tilly. “It’s not what they say, it’s just them, and I do not like her.”
“Who?” said Sparke.
Tilly sighed and looked up at the ceiling.
“Maryam Drysdale-Behier,” she said. “That was her on the phone.”
Sparke nodded, not because he wanted to express particular agreement, but in order to do something supportive while he thought.
“But you made that program together,” he said. “I thought you had worked everything out.”
For a moment Sparke learned what it might feel like on the receiving end of an angry Tilly Pink. She looked at him in a way that made him feel as though he was being subjected to a hostile X-ray.
“The program was fine, the experience was not,” said Tilly. “Maryam Drysdale-Behier has an absolute determination to work out a story that makes a good television program then assemble the facts that suit her. She is not someone I want to spend time working with.”
Sparke nodded again. “Yup, I get that,” he said. “But the program you made for her company was good, wasn’t it? I mean, it won awards. I liked it.” Judging by Tilly’s expression, his positive approach was not helping the situation. “Why is she calling?”
“She wants to meet me. She has another of her big ideas and wants me as part of it.”
“OK, so you just said no, right?” said Sparke.
“I didn’t say anything,” said Tilly.
Sparke nodded again.
“Help me out here,” he said. “You worked with her company once before, and even though the program you made was popular, you tell me that you can’t stand her and never want to work with her or her people again.”
“Yup,” Tilly said.
“So, why didn’t you just tell her that you’re not interested?” said Sparke.
“Two reasons,” said Tilly. “First off, she is impervious to the word ‘no’. You can jump on her desk and shout it in her face and she thinks you have told her that you’ll think it over. The more you say that you don’t want to do something with her, the more she piles on the charm.” Tilly picked up her mug of tea and drained it. “And I hate charming people.”
“I suppose that means that I’m not very charming then?” said Sparke. Tilly smiled.
“You’re much better than charming, Peter,” she said, sitting down next to him and putting her arms around his neck. “You can put up with me.”
“You’re easy to put up with,” said Sparke. “Anyway, you said there were two reasons why you didn’t tell her to get lost. One was her offensive ability to smother you in charm, what was the other?”
“The other? Oh, that’s even worse. She’s found the one thing that no one in my field can say no to. The one great Templar myth that might well be based on reality.”
“Which is?”
“Which is,” said Tilly, “the Silver Scroll?”
“Sounds pretty dramatic.”
“Like a script for a bad movie, but it’s real all right.”
“Look,” said Sparke, “let’s go and find somewhere to eat. I’m starving and you can tell me all about your scroll and why it’s so exciting. How about that?”
“If it involves eating that sounds like a great plan,” said Tilly.
“Where should we eat?” said Sparke, reaching for his coat on the rack by the door.
“Don’t know,” she said, squeezing past him.
“You need a bigger apartment,” said Sparke. “This place is tiny.”
“It’s not tiny, it’s compact. Anyway, it’s all I can afford in this part of town. We’re not all millionaires you know.”
They closed the apartment door and walked down three flights of stairs to reach the street. The flat was small, but Sparke understood why Tilly chose to live here. Edinburgh’s New Town was, despite the name, well over two hundred years old. Apart from a few urban planning blunders in the 1970s it had retained its original design. Broad cobbled streets were laid out in a strict Georgian pattern, and every building conformed to a style that made it one of the most treasured urban landscapes in the world.
Tilly thrust her arm into Sparke’s and they walked uphill towards George Street, once a quiet thoroughfare but now a bustling area full of bars and restaurants. They found a table at their favorite place and squeezed into a tiny booth.
“So, scrolls, tell me all about them then,” said Sparke.
“You’ll like this,” said Tilly. “Right up your street. You’ve heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls, right?”
“Sure, found in the desert. Jewish religious archive I think.”
“Close enough. The scrolls were all written on parchment or papyrus. Except for one.”
“Which was written on silver?” said Sparke, looking at the menu.
“Nope,” said Tilly, “copper.”
“Let me guess, it’s full of mysterious clues and hidden symbols that no one has ever deciphered.”
“Actually, smarty pants, it’s a highly detailed list of locations of hiding places and the exact contents of each.”
“The contents being?” said Sparke.
“Gold and silver. And I mean, as far as I can recall, it’s extremely precise. It says things like, ‘there is a strongbox containing sixty talents of silver under the steps in the storeroom by the north gate’. Things like that
. No codes, no hidden symbols.”
“And did they find all this loot?” said Sparke, accepting a menu from the waiter.
“That’s the thing. You see, the whole list was written in an almost casual way, as though whoever wrote it was leaving a note for someone who knew all the same places. The details are just too obscure for modern researchers to understand. The scroll is quite clear, but the places it mentions, the buildings and whatnot, are all so long gone that the list is impossible to navigate from.”
“Scroll or scrolls? I thought there was more than one the way you spoke.”
“There was one Copper Scroll discovered with the Dead Sea find, but there has long been a suspicion that any list as important as this, important enough to be engraved onto copper, would have had more than one copy. In fact, it is very commonly suggested that a second scroll was uncovered.”
“Who by?”
“Now, there’s no firm evidence for this, but the story goes that the second scroll, one engraved on a sheet of silver, was uncovered shortly after the Crusaders took Jerusalem.” Tilly paused to order a drink from the waiter.
“The story, and it’s just a story,” said Tilly, using the tone she adopted whenever she was educating Sparke, “is that it was unearthed by the Knights Templar.”
Traffic
The city of Acre vibrated with the noise of the traffic that clogged the streets from dawn to dusk. Dust and stink rose from ground level so that only the highest roofs ever felt a breath of fresh air. The harbor was so congested that ships, unable to find a berth, often unloaded onto small lighters rather than risk having their cargoes spoil. Fights and bribes were used in equal measure to get tied up faster to the quayside.
Between the ships small customs boats darted, sharp-prowed and fast, each trailing the red pennants of the Republic of Venice. Every boat was rowed by eight oarsmen and carried four crossbowmen. At the prow of each vessel sat a Tax Assessor.
Every ship that carried cargo through the harbor was subject to their law. The low, windowless customs house on the quay was their domain and on the wall by its watergate hung the rudder of a ship which had tried to evade customs duty by loading from the beach a few miles along the coast. The rudder was wrapped in a frayed length of the silk that it had been carrying.
Next to the rudder hung the sun-dried cadaver of the captain, tried and executed the day he had been captured. The Venetians had paid a lot of money for the right to collect customs dues and they were rigorous in ensuring the return on their investment.
European wine, wools and tin flooded into the city of Acre and, in return, vast quantities of silk, spices and luxuries like sugar flowed the other way. Every year thousands of European slaves from the lands around the Black Sea were shipped in by Venetian and Genoan merchants for their Arab clients.
At the heart of this river of wealth sat the houses of the great trading republics of Italy. Between them, Genoa and Venice alone had more men, more ships and more money than all the other Western powers combined. The civil authority of the king did not trouble them much.
There were other trading cities in the eastern Mediterranean, but Acre had one distinction: it was the last major Crusader outpost left in the Holy Land. One after another, all the other lands that had been conquered by Europeans had reverted to Muslim control.
Now Acre stood, an island with the sea to its back and the desert before it, locked in a holy war that had lasted three hundred years, still dependent on each other for the trade that kept the taxes flowing. If the rulers on both sides could not tax trade, they would have to tax their own people and that was no way to keep a population content and docile.
“Ten years of peace, Brother Mason,” said Salvatore. “You must be happy.”
“How long have you known me, Salvatore?”
“Since the day I became an initiate to the Order.”
“And how often have you seen me happy?”
“I think you are always happy, but you choose to keep your joy to yourself.”
The Mason smiled. “Perhaps you’re right, but right now I have little to feel joyful for. There is a difference between peace and a lack of war. Right now there is peace because the pressure to trade is greater than the pressure to fight, but that can change. It will change, the only question is when, and when it does we must be ready.”
“And that is why you bring me here?” said Salvatore.
“Why else would I call you here?” said the Mason. “Apart from your cheerful company.”
Salvatore smiled and made a mocking half bow. “I am yours to command.”
“Come,” said the Mason. “Let’s look at the world.”
He led the way out of the small room and up a spiral staircase towards the high battlements. The Templar castle in Acre overlooked the harbor and was three stories higher than any surrounding building. Its seaward side was a sheer wall of stone, its landward side faced into the streets, but even this was as heavily fortified as any frontier castle; a fortress within a city.
Despite the recent peace treaty, the battlements were fully manned with knights and sergeants of the Order scanning the teeming city below and the world beyond.
The Mason pointed south, along the coast.
“Down there is Egypt, where the real power of the Saracens lies. They are strong and getting stronger. Like us, they have many merchants and those merchants cry out that their trade is stolen by infidels here in Acre. They ask why Crusaders are left here to prosper in Arab lands. The peace made by Qalawun is not popular in Egypt.”
“You have spies there?” said Salvatore.
“We have friends everywhere and my friends in Cairo keep me informed. They are our first line of defense. Over there,” the Mason nodded to the west, “are the roads that an invading army will take. I have men there who keep their eyes open and tell me what is happening. That is our next line. After that we have the walls of this city, after that we have the walls of our own castle. If this falls we have a tunnel that can reach the sea, even if the whole building is brought down above it.”
“With all this to guard us, what can I do?” said Salvatore. “I am no general.”
“Here is what you can do. When Qalawun and his Saracen army come, and they will, they will march through the hills and break every line of defense that we have. They will take these walls and stand where we stand now. They know every inch of this city and every part of our defenses; half this city is Muslim and everything we do is watched. I need a line of defense, a last line that no one knows anything about.”
“And that is me?”
“That is you,” said the Mason.
“But if the city falls, what am I to defend?”
Truth
“It’s a three-parter,” said Maryam. “The whole series is about shining the light of modern scientific method onto some of the great mysteries of the Crusader period. Part one is the mystery of the wealth of the Templars.”
“Is there any mystery about the wealth of the Templars?” said Sparke.
“No,” said Tilly, turning her head away from Maryam. “They held huge tracts of land and received piles of money in bequests from European nobility who wanted to make sure they bought their way into heaven. Their wealth is thoroughly documented.”
“Great, that will be part of the story,” smiled Maryam, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Tilly had just contradicted her. “What we want to know is how a handful of soldiers in Jerusalem went from guarding a few pilgrims into being the Templars. If I’m not mistaken there was less than a dozen members to begin with and they were pledged to poverty. What happened to give them the initial wealth to grow so big and so quickly? Our research team tells us that there is a growing body of opinion that the Copper Scroll is only one version of the original document.”
“You’re talking about the myth of the Silver Scroll?” said Tilly.
“I’m talking about the idea that there might have been more than one document. There is a lot of evidence that it may have been
uncovered when the Templars took possession of the land where Solomon’s Temple had once stood.”
Tilly had become one of the youngest professors in her field, partly by bringing a dry, dusty subject into the public spotlight, but it was a thin line between popular history and dumbing the subject down for the sake of a mass television audience. Straying across that line could be career suicide.
“There’s no story here,” said Tilly. “I’m sorry, but making a television program about a myth that hardly anyone has ever heard of just doesn’t work for me. We would have to tell them the story then explain why there was no evidence to support it.”
Maryam smiled and turned to Sparke.
“Peter, tell me your thoughts on this idea.”
“Me? I have no thoughts on this at all,” he said. “I’d never heard of the thing until Tilly explained it to me.”
“And what did you think, I mean as an educated layman with an interest in the period?”
Sparke shifted in his seat and glanced out of the window at the Edinburgh streets, suddenly wishing he was outside.
“Well, of course the idea that somebody wrote down a list of locations where treasure was hidden is certainly intriguing and it does raise some questions.”
“Questions?” said Maryam. “Like what?”
“Like, why use metal in the first place?” said Sparke. “I mean, you have to assume that this scroll was written with the idea that somebody was going to read it, but using a metal to write it on suggests that they thought that it would need to survive a long time. Copper is a strange choice; it decays fairly rapidly and turns green with mildew if it’s exposed to the elements. Why not use something that is more inert? Lead is more durable, and more pliable; certainly easy to come by.”
“Interesting thought,” said Maryam. “It would make good viewing to duplicate a scroll in copper and lead then show how they both stood up to a bit of exposure. We can use that. What other questions does it raise for you?”
The Templar Scroll: Book six in the series Page 2